Georgia

The Georgia Supreme Court ruled yesterday that state public bodies must record in public meeting minutes the names of those members who voted against or abstained from voting on a measure, even where the vote is not taken by a roll call.

Earlier this week the Georgia Supreme Court declined to review a lower court decision in the long-running libel case against The Atlanta Journal-Constitution filed by Richard Jewell, who was wrongfully accused of the 1996 Olympic Park bombing, and carried on by his family since his death in 2007.

Reporters at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution did not libel a security guard, who was at first hailed as a hero after the 1996 bombing at Centennial Olympic Park, when they reported authorities were investigating him as a suspect in the bombing, the Georgia Court of Appeals ruled this month.

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press filed a friend-of-the-court brief Monday asking a federal appeals court to revisit the U.S. Marshals Service’s “inane” policy of releasing federal suspects’ mug shots based on the requestor’s physical location.

The McDuffie (Ga.) Mirrorreported that a Georgia trial judge issued an order prohibiting reporters and other attendees of a criminal court proceeding from publicly disclosing the testimony given at the hearing.

The Georgia House of Representatives unanimously passed legislation Tuesday that will exempt crime scene photos depicting a victim’s dismembered body or exposed genitalia from the state's Open Records Act, the Rome News-Tribune reported.

Hustler magazine's request for photos of a slain hiker has prompted a push by Georgia lawmakers to quickly pass a bill that would block the release of certain crime scene photos without the permission of the deceased individual's family or a court order, The Chattanooga Times Free Pressreported.

A Georgia man yesterday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to revisit his conviction for drug trafficking on the grounds that the public was improperly excluded from the jury selection hearing, called voir dire.